$1B State forensic lab still can’t undertake DNA tests

Despite opening of the one billion-dollar Guyana Forensic Science Laboratory (GFSL), investigators continue to rely on regional facilities to provide DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) tests to help solve some of the most high-profile crimes.
In recent months, investigators have had to send DNA samples overseas in the death of Kescia Branche, the 22-year-old teacher, who was found, battered and abandoned in an unconscious state on the roadway at Princes Street and Louisa Row, Georgetown.
Investigators have also sought DNA tests on two separate skeletal remains found in a sack at Enmore, East Coast Demerara and in an abandoned school compound in New Amsterdam, Berbice.
Meanwhile, relatives await critical word from the tests to help bring clarity and in some cases closure.
Public Security Minister, Khemraj Ramjattan, is confident that the issues preventing proper storage of samples at the ‘modern facility’ will be addressed shortly which will allow the police to access DNA testing locally in 2018.
Ramjattan said that due to the new budgetary allocation for the building’s venting system and allocations from the citizen community project with help from the U.S Embassy, the lab will soon have the capacity for DNA tests.
“The physical infrastructure is not there for the integrity of samples, because you don’t want DNA to be mixed up…and of course, the training of these people who are going to do the testing and thirdly, the actual machines that are going to do the various tests to ensure that it happens,” Ramjattan explained.

The Guyana Forensic Science Laboratory

The lab was opened in 2014 at Turkeyen under the People’s Progressive party (PPP) administration, but by February 2017, the coalition found issues with the building. In February last, Cabinet approved US$32,524 for the lab to be operationalised.
Kaieteur News was told that Inter-American Development Bank-funded GFSL currently offers some forensic analysis on samples related to criminal investigations in the areas of toxicology, questioned documents analysis, trace evidence and Chemical analysis and non-forensic laboratory testing, relating to matters not associated with criminal investigations.
Once the infrastructural work has been completed, there is the process of securing the equipment and providing training for specialized persons.
Ramjattan expressed disappointment that the additional work at the lab has not been completed as yet.
“Democracy is a lot of bureaucracy, and sometimes you don’t get your way because of other important players that indicate that these are the things,” said Ramjattan.
He added, “I had really wanted it before the end of this year, but it doesn’t seem like that will happen, because the air ventilation and the air conditioning unit to ensure the proper preservation, and no disintegration at certain temperatures of the samples, were not put in place.”
Local police investigators first used forensic technology in the Monica Reece murder 24 years ago in one of the nation’s most sensational unsolved murders.